On behalf of the NTU Executive Board and myself, we want to wish you all a restful, Blessed and safe summer, because we’re going to need you at your best when we get back.
I know that for many of you there are still plenty of responsibilities over the summer: taking care of parents, children, p/t jobs, etc. But we need you rested when you come back, so sleep as often as you can, nap, then sleep again.
22 years of takeover and 7 years of relentless attacks from the Anderson/Cerf regimes have left us a school district in rubble. Basic systems/programs/models used in every school district in the state are here not more than empty offices and unfilled positions....the remains of reform ruins. As a union of professionals, we will have to take off our helmets and put on our thinking caps.
Like Europe in 1945, Puerto Rico after Maria or New Orleans after Katrina, the Newark Board of Education will need to be rebuilt. Long vacant leadership positions need to be filled. Programs that once worked must be restored, and failed reform schemes, such as EWA’s, must be deactivated and tossed into the gutter from w,hence they came.
As with everything else over the last two decades, the following few years will be historic. As educators, we will be in a unique position to build a school district from the ground up.
I know the members of the NTU can do this---Yes We Can, Si Se Puede!!